Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

In the nine months just ended, renationalization of the U.K. nuclear weapons complex cost Lockheed Martin’s Space segment more than three quarters of a billion dollars, the company reported Tuesday. Bringing the British weapons program fully back into the government’s arms dropped sales in Lockheed Space by some $865 million over the past nine months, […]

The Department of Energy intends in November to start up the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, the federal agency told state officials. That was the target DOE’s Office of Environmental Management gave officials with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on a conference call last week, Kim Custer, a senior […]

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to declare a federal emergency after the Hazelwood, Mo., school board voted to stop using a local elementary school near which radioactive contamination has been found from a Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program cleanup site. The Hazelwood Board of Education acted Tuesday night to close […]

The Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board was set Friday to hold a hearing about an environmental group’s appeal of an agreement between the state and the Department of Energy about emptying two leaky radioactive waste tanks at the Hanford Site. Seattle-based Heart of America Northwest filed the appeal on Sept. 26 against the Washington Department […]

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday denied a protest by a women owned small business seeking to overturn a $53-million award at the Y-12 National Security Complex to Sigma Science. Vector Resources — which lists its headquarters and mailing addresses in a pop-up business space in Erie, Pa., and a strip mall in Engelwood, Fla., […]

In the nine months just ended, renationalization of the U.K. nuclear weapons complex cost Lockheed Martin’s Space segment more than three quarters of a billion dollars, the company reported Tuesday. Bringing the British weapons program fully back into the government’s arms dropped sales in Lockheed Space by some $865 million over the past nine months, […]

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

The Department of Energy and its prime contractor for the two main U.S. civilian nuclear-weapons production sites agreed in early October to end a contractual dispute before it escalated to court, according to a recently published decision. According to a notice dated Oct. 6 and published subsequently, attorneys for the Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security […]

The nuclear-powered submarines Australia wants will likely include U.S.-built nuclear reactors and be preceded by a joint U.S.-Australian command of a Virginia-class attack submarine, a member of the House Armed Services Committee said in a recent virtual event. “I think the way to do that is to just say that BWXT will produce those reactors, they’ll […]

The Pantex Plant could soon rid itself of plutonium sent to the Amarillo, Texas, nuclear weapons depot from the Savannah River Site, the government’s independent nuclear safety agency said recently. In late August, according to a report published this week by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Pantex prime contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) demonstrated […]

The prime contractor at the Savannah River Site last week signed a project labor agreement with a consortium of 19 labor unions for construction of the larger of the National Nuclear Security Administration plutonium pit plants. The Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions and the Augusta Building and Construction Trades Council inked the accord in Augusta, […]

Uranium fuel company Cameco and environmental investment firm Brookfield Renewable Partners announced this week a strategic partnership aimed at purchasing Westinghouse Electric Company, according to a press release. If the deal closes as planned, Cameco will own a 49% stake in Westinghouse and Brookfield Renewable will control 51% of the company, according to a Tuesday […]

The Department of Energy said this week it plans to increase the ceiling on a small business contract held by RSI Services to $47 million from $22 million for demolition and removal work at two Naval Reactor sites in New York state. Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based RSI won the five-year demolition contract for the Kesselring and […]

Two research contractors for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory could enter guilty pleas next week for allegedly submitting false bills to the federal agency for nearly a decade, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina. Greenway Energy and Savannah River Consulting, both of which have agreed to plead […]

The two partners in Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the incumbent cleanup team at the Department of Energy Portsmouth Site in Ohio, are rivals in pursuit of the new Decontamination & Decommissioning Contract, industry sources said this week. BWX Technologies is leading a team along with Jacobs and APTIM that is vying for the follow-on Portsmouth decommissioning contract, […]

As the top boss at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office promised last week, crews at the Hanford Site in Washington state are heating up a giant melter designed to solidify radioactive tank waste into a glass form at the $17-billion Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. The DOE began heating up the 300-ton melter […]

A Department of Energy contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state will commence retrieving radioactive waste from a single-shell tank next month, a federal safety board said recently. Amentum-led contractor Washington River Protection Solutions plans to begin retrieval of tank AX-101’s  waste in mid-November, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in a […]

State and federal agencies said in a Wednesday analysis that teardown and removal of old U.S. Naval submarine reactor prototype facilities at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is the best remediation option. That is according to an engineering evaluation/cost analysis published for demolition of Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse and Aircraft Carrier 1st Generation […]

There is a changing at the guard in upper management ranks of Oak Ridge, Tenn.,-based Navarro Research & Engineering as Ryan Overton, formerly of GEM Technologies, becoming executive vice president, gradually takes over the role from industry vet Cathy Hickey who plans to retire from the company next year. “Ryan is fabulous,” Hickey said in […]

State and federal agencies said in a Wednesday analysis that teardown and removal of old U.S. Naval submarine reactor prototype facilities at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is the best remediation option. That is according to an engineering evaluation/cost analysis published for demolition of Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse and Aircraft Carrier 1st Generation […]

The Pantex Plant could soon rid itself of plutonium sent to the Amarillo, Texas, nuclear weapons depot from the Savannah River Site, the government’s independent nuclear safety agency said recently. In late August, according to a report published this week by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Pantex prime contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) demonstrated […]

The Department of Energy and a Jacobs-led contractor have started tearing down shuttered support buildings at the Idaho National Laboratory used for a Naval reactor prototype for the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. The Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management announced in February it would oversee deactivation and demolition of the Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse […]

The prime contractor at the Savannah River Site last week signed a project labor agreement with a consortium of 19 labor unions for construction of the larger of the National Nuclear Security Administration plutonium pit plants. The Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions and the Augusta Building and Construction Trades Council inked the accord in Augusta, […]

KNOXVILLE, TENN. – The Department of Energy’s acting manager for nuclear cleanup at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee said here Wednesday that final state and federal authorization are in hand for design and construction of a long-sought onsite low-level hazardous waste landfill. “We had a major milestone on Friday,” when the state of Tennessee […]

An upscale distillery run by Anne Marie White, the last Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, is now open in a renovated theatre in White’s hometown of Marquette, Mich. The Honorable Distillery is now open and has scheduled an official grand opening celebration for this Saturday Oct. 8. White, […]

Department of Energy contractor Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Services has promoted chief operating officer Steve Moore to be its president and CEO. The U.S. based subsidiary of Veolia Nuclear Solutions announced the promotion in a Tuesday press release. Moore has been interim CEO since August following the resignation of William Morrison, who left Veolia to […]

Cavendish Nuclear, an international nuclear player in countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, opened a United States office headquarters Sept. 22 in Arlington, Va., a spokesperson confirmed by email Wednesday. The nuclear industries in the United Kingdom and United States “share many similarities in their plant designs, operational histories and in the search […]

An Amentum-Jacobs team won about $27.5 million or 85% out of a potential $32 million from the Department of Energy for its remediation of the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee during the final seven months on the job. The DOE released the URS CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) award Oct. 3 for the period spanning Nov. […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will take over the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., by 2025, and the transition has started, the Department of Energy confirmed Tuesday. The former plutonium production site is currently the responsibility of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), the part of the agency responsible for cleaning up shuttered Manhattan […]